Putin discussed Russia's recent laws with Human Rights Council

During the meeting with human rights activists Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to reconsider the laws on state secrets and libel, asked the State Duma not to rush into passing a law protecting the religious beliefs, and did not rule out the possibility of returning to the law on registering foreign-funded NGOs as “foreign agents.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his
first meeting last Monday with his expanded Human Rights Council (HRC).
He proposed reorganizing the work of this new presidential council for the
development of civil society and human rights.

He signed a degree on expanding
the council’s total number of members ahead of the first meeting. Putin believes
that the work of the HRC should be optimized and, in order to do this, a
presidium with a rotating membership could be created. Working groups focusing
on different aspects of the council’s activities could be organized, as well.

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Putin noted that the council’s membership
had significantly expanded. It now consists of 62 members, as opposed to the
previous 40. Moreover, Putin has invited a 63rd member to join the
council: notorious human rights activist Alexander Brod, who went on a hunger
strike in September to protest his exclusion from a shortlist of candidates to
join the council.

Questions now arise as to how to make the
HRC “have real influence,” not only on the work of the head of the government,
but also on “the work of executive and legal organs.” Putin noted that the most
important factor of all is direct contact that will help the council realize
the tasks before it. “This must be direct, open and honest joint work,” said
Putin.

Vladimir Putin also told the members of the
new council that he considered it possible to review the amendments to
legislation concerning liability for treason. He agreed that there should not
be “a broad interpretation” of state treason.

Reminding his listeners that the bill in
question had passed a preliminary review by a panel of experts, the president
said that he was ready to review it with more care. Putin did not rule out the
possibility of refining the formulation of the law on libel. However, he
stressed that this matter would have to be examined with extreme thoroughness,
since libel often does serious harm to the reputations of business people,
actors and other public figures.

“Everything that is not connected with
politics must be excluded from the purview of this law,” said Putin. However,
he said that it was right to pass amendments to the law on NGOs, “so that other
states will not interfere in Russia’s internal affairs.”

The Russian president further noted that
he was not against signing a decree that would oblige government officials to
respond promptly to the questions of journalists; he did, however, express that
he sees certain technical difficulties in this. He said that some mechanism and
legal technology must be operative in this process.

“I simply don’t understand very well how
we can do this,” said Putin. At the same time, he allowed that officials
sometimes need protection from journalists also. In the president’s opinion,
government employees “must not all be tarred with the same brush, and they must
be shielded from baseless attacks.” Putin stated that he did not see anything
wrong with instituting responsibility for victimization through criticism,
including from journalists.

The president further agreed to an HRC
proposal urging him to ask the State Duma not to hurry a bill through that
would make insults to religious beliefs punishable by law. HRC member Irina
Khakamada called the amendments a “delayed-action bomb,” insofar as religious
beliefs are not a legal concept that can be subjected to strict interpretation.

Finally, Putin proposed to the HRC that it
find a consolidated position on the matter of financing public television in
Russia. He asked council members “to think about this, but so that neither the
government nor the president does the regulating, and so that a compromise
decision can be worked out.”

The president’s proposal of creating a
presidium within the HRC with a periodically rotating membership was not
discussed. In the opinion of new HRC member Yelena Topolyova-Soldunova, a presidium
is necessary because working all together with such a large group is near to
impossible.

“It was all very chaotic, a lot of people,
everyone wanted to say what was on their mind, so we kept jumping from topic to
topic,” said Topolyova-Soldunova, when asked to describe the first meeting of
the expanded human rights council with the president. “I didn’t manage to say
what I wanted to.”